Reckless drivers, beware. You cannot walk away with just a fine for traffic offences on accident-prone city roads any more. The traffic police are planning to send errant drivers to the Motor Vehicles Department’s (MVD) Institute of Driving Training and Research (IDTR) at Edappal in Malappuram district for a full-day scientific session on safe driving.
“In the past two months, we have sent about 500 drivers from the city to attend the session. A majority of them were youngsters aged below 30,” says Assistant Commissioner of Traffic (Kozhikode South) A.K. Babu. He says the new mode of punishment is proving to be effective besides the usual legal action.
Though two-wheeler riders form a majority of participants in the IDTR classes, there are also private bus drivers who are advised to attend the compulsory session as a punishment. Not less than 100 such drivers from Kozhikode city attended the safe driving session at the IDTR in two months.
“Many of the drivers who are booked for traffic-related offences are ignorant of even the basic safety norms, healthy driving habits and defensive driving practices. Freeing them with just a nominal fine will not make the desired change. We have given more emphasis on sending them to the training classes,” says Mr. Babu. He points out that those who have attended the sessions are vouching for its effectiveness.
No one will be able to skip the training as the police will withhold either the vehicle documents or the vehicle itself of the offenders till they complete the training . Every Friday, the IDTR conducts classes with the support of expert resource persons to convince the learners about the dangerous driving habits, and the need to change them through personal attention. The participants will also have to remit ₹250 for the crash course.
The traffic police say they will release the seized vehicles and documents only after the offenders produce the one-day training certificate. The corrective training is not just limited to people who commit rash driving alone, but to those who even defy traffic signals, lane traffic discipline and parking rules, they add.